On the first day of fall, we hear that 48 percent of voters surveyed are supporting Democrat Barack Obama and 44 percent support Republican John McCain for the presidency in the Gallup daily track.

On the first day of fall, the Treasury Department is undertaking some real fall cleaning: Asking Congress for the authority to float as much as $700 billion in bonds to pay for the bailout of bad mortgage debts "clogging'' the plumbing of the American financial system.

On the first day of fall, the Chicago Cubs (with 94 wins) have clinched the Central Division of the National League and the Chicago White Sox (86 wins) are leading in the Central Division of the American League.

On the first day of fall, it's 80 degrees in Washington this afternoon, though the Weather Channel says it "feels like'' 81 - that is some discerning weatherperson they have here in the nation's capital.

On the first day of fall, women are pretty much evenly divided over whether Obama or McCain would make a good president, says a poll released by the Lifetime Networks - though this measure was taken by a bipartisan panel of pollsters more than a week ago, in a campaign in which a week is an eternity.

More notable, perhaps, is that 45 percent of the women surveyed say McCain is ready and prepared to be president, while 38 percent say that about Obama. (Only 10 percent say so about Obama running mate Joe Biden, and just 3 percent see view McCain running mate Sarah Palin as prepared for the presidency.)

On the first day of fall, the first of the televised presidential election debates is just four days away - at 9 pm EDT Friday -- and there are only 42 more days left before Election Day.

That Chicago-centric World Series will have been played by then, the pollsters will be polled out and one of the two leading candidates for president will have a president-elect after his name, if it doesn't take another 46 days and the Supreme Court to settle it. (Chances of an all-Chicago series are about as great as a replayof Election 2000).

With only 7% of employees in unions, maybe they don't think much about their right to vote whether to authorize one any more. Except, contrary to political elections, workplace elections to decide whether or not to select a union have extremely high turn-out. So, maybe employees don't think about it until they need to. Right now, even if you sign a card saying you want a union, you almost always get to vote in private - a second chance. If the Employee-Free Choice Act becomes law, that will be no second chance. A vote for Obama is a vote for EFCA.

How about letting everyone vote for the CEO? Maybe if workers had gotten to do that we wouldn't be bailing out all of these companies to the tune of 700 Billion dollars. You can try to switch the subject to the unions, but corporate manangement in this country is rotten to the core. A vote for McCain is a vote for 4 more years of de-regulation and corporate malfeasance.

Aaron,
I think corporate stockholder and stakeholder protections are long overdue. But I see no reason to remove an employee choice protection that has existed for over 70 years just so it will increase unions' market share. George McGovern has said this is undemocratic. Clinton NLRB Chair Bill Gould says Obama should embrace instant elections instead. I understand Obama is backed into a corner on this. But taking this choice from employees and giving it to unions or their supporters only is not right and reciting current wrongs will not make it so.

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